Trump to Attend Bush Funeral, but Won’t Deliver Eulogy

For the next week, former President George H.W. Bush will be mourned and honored in Texas, where he lived for most of his life and will be buried, and in Washington, where he spent the most formative years of his political career.

Bush will be honored with a state funeral, which traditionally consists of three parts for up to 10 days. The former president was celebrated in Texas, his state of residence, before his coffin was transported to ceremonies in Washington. Bush’s coffin will then be returned to Texas for a final funeral and burial.

President Donald Trump, in a gesture of respect for Bush’s legacy, ordered all flags flown at half-staff for 30 days beginning last Friday, the day Bush died. He also designated Wednesday a national day of mourning, ordering “all executive departments and agencies” to be closed.

Here is how you can pay your respects to the 41st president.

TUESDAY

Bush will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. He will continue lying in state in the Rotunda for public viewing on Wednesday morning, the 11th president do so.

The Capitol Police will not allow flowers, sealed envelopes or other offerings to be brought into the Rotunda.

An honor guard will remain with the coffin, as members of the public pay their respects until 7 a.m. ET Wednesday. He will remain in the Rotunda until 8:45 a.m.

WEDNESDAY

There will be a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

The funeral will begin at 11 a.m. ET. Trump, former presidents and other Washington dignitaries are expected to attend.

The state funeral is invitation only, but is likely to be broadcast live.

Once Bush’s body returns to Houston, it will be taken to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where it will lie in repose with an honor guard. Mourners can pay their respects from 6 p.m. Central time Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday.

THURSDAY

There will be a funeral at St. Martin’s before Bush is buried.

A second funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Central time.

The funeral is invitation only, but is likely to be broadcast live.

Bush will then be buried on the grounds of his presidential library and museum at Texas A&M University in College Station. He will be laid to rest on a family plot next to Barbara, his wife of 73 years who died in April, and his daughter, Robin, who died at age 3 in 1953.

The funeral procession to the library will be open to the public, but the interment ceremony will be private.

Here’s how to pay your respects if you are unable to travel to Texas or Washington.

A memorial fund has been established at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M.

Turner, the Houston mayor, has also encouraged residents to wear colorful socks in honor of Bush’s famously colorful collection of socks. The former president will be buried wearing socks that honor his service as a naval aviator.

President Donald Trump will attend but not speak at this week’s funeral service for former President George H.W. Bush, seemingly a compromise intended to respect tradition while avoiding an awkward moment given the animosity between the current president and the Bush family.

Instead, eulogies will be delivered by Bush’s son, former President George W. Bush, and two friends, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada and former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo. Rounding out the speakers will be Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer-winning historian and author of the definitive biography of the 41st president.

Here Are the Events and the Ceremonies

For the next week, former President George H.W. Bush will be mourned and honored in Texas, where he lived for most of his life and will be buried, and in Washington, where he spent the most formative years of his political career.

Bush will be honored with a state funeral, which traditionally consists of three parts for up to 10 days. The former president was celebrated in Texas, his state of residence, before his coffin was transported to ceremonies in Washington. Bush’s coffin will then be returned to Texas for a final funeral and burial.

President Donald Trump, in a gesture of respect for Bush’s legacy, ordered all flags flown at half-staff for 30 days beginning last Friday, the day Bush died. He also designated Wednesday a national day of mourning, ordering “all executive departments and agencies” to be closed.

Here is how you can pay your respects to the 41st president.

TUESDAY

Bush will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. He will continue lying in state in the Rotunda for public viewing on Wednesday morning, the 11th president do so.

The Capitol Police will not allow flowers, sealed envelopes or other offerings to be brought into the Rotunda.

An honor guard will remain with the coffin, as members of the public pay their respects until 7 a.m. ET Wednesday. He will remain in the Rotunda until 8:45 a.m.

WEDNESDAY

There will be a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

The funeral will begin at 11 a.m. ET. Trump, former presidents and other Washington dignitaries are expected to attend.

The state funeral is invitation only, but is likely to be broadcast live.

Once Bush’s body returns to Houston, it will be taken to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where it will lie in repose with an honor guard. Mourners can pay their respects from 6 p.m. Central time Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday.

THURSDAY

There will be a funeral at St. Martin’s before Bush is buried.

A second funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Central time.

The funeral is invitation only, but is likely to be broadcast live.

Bush will then be buried on the grounds of his presidential library and museum at Texas A&M University in College Station. He will be laid to rest on a family plot next to Barbara, his wife of 73 years who died in April, and his daughter, Robin, who died at age 3 in 1953.

The funeral procession to the library will be open to the public, but the interment ceremony will be private.

Here’s how to pay your respects if you are unable to travel to Texas or Washington.

A memorial fund has been established at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M.

Turner, the Houston mayor, has also encouraged residents to wear colorful socks in honor of Bush’s famously colorful collection of socks. The former president will be buried wearing socks that honor his service as a naval aviator.

Trump, who has been sharply critical of the Bush family in the past, has offered nothing but praise for the former president since his death at age 94 on Friday and made no complaint about being left off the roster of funeral speakers.

“Looking forward to being with the Bush Family to pay my respects to President George H.W. Bush,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Monday.

The lineup for the state funeral service at Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday emerged as Bush began his final trip to the nation’s capital. Despite the tension with the Bush family, Trump followed protocol by sending the blue-and-white presidential jet to pick up the former president’s coffin in Texas and bring it to Washington. Normally called Air Force One when the sitting president is onboard, it was given the call sign Special Air Mission 41 for the occasion.

During a simple but somber ceremony at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base outside Houston, Bush’s coffin was loaded onto the plane. The younger Bush; his wife, Laura; his brother Neil; and other members of the family stood at attention during a 21-gun salute and the playing of “Hail to the Chief.”

Friends and relatives then boarded the plane to join the Bush family patriarch for his journey to Washington, where he will lie in state before his funeral. Joining the family for the trip was the former president’s service dog, Sully, who was shown earlier lying by his coffin at the funeral home in a photograph released by the elder Bush’s spokesman.

The Bush family has been estranged from the incumbent president since the 2016 presidential election when Trump defeated former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida for the Republican nomination in a bruising primary battle that turned increasingly nasty. Trump has also denigrated George W. Bush’s leadership, and on the campaign trail this fall, mocked the elder Bush’s slogan, “a thousand points of light,” referring to volunteerism.

George H.W. Bush told the author Mark K. Updegrove that he voted for Hillary Clinton in the fall of 2016 and the younger Bush said he voted for none of the above. The 43rd president has at times issued barely veiled criticism of Trump’s nationalist “America First” approach to foreign policy and immigration.

While Sen. John McCain was dying this year, he made clear that he did not want Trump even to attend his service at the National Cathedral. Instead, he invited the two men who defeated him in his bids for the White House, the younger Bush and former President Barack Obama, to give eulogies.

Their tributes to McCain in September were seen as implicit rebukes of Trump. The senator’s daughter, Meghan McCain, was even less elliptical in using her own eulogy to contrast her father with the president. “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” she said to applause.

It would not be like Bush to want his funeral to be a spectacle, and he evidently chose not to defy protocol by asking Trump to keep away. While other presidents have at times skipped funerals for predecessors — Richard M. Nixon did not attend services for Harry S. Truman, with whom he had a difficult relationship — in recent decades it has been the norm.

Even Nixon personally asked President Bill Clinton to deliver the eulogy at his service even though Hillary Clinton, the first lady, had served on the House Judiciary Committee staff as it pursued impeachment during the Watergate investigation that led to his resignation. Bill Clinton was generous in his testimonial. “May the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close,” he said in what was seen as closure over Watergate.

Bush’s coffin was being flown on Monday to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington and will be taken to the U.S. Capitol, where he served four years as a member of the House in the 1960s. Congressional leaders plan a ceremony in the Capitol and he will then lie in state there until Wednesday morning before being brought to the cathedral.

After the service there, Bush’s body will be flown back to Houston for a service at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where he was a longtime member. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the president’s longtime friend, will speak at the church.

The former president will then be taken by a special train named Locomotive 4141 and painted the same blue shade used on Air Force One to College Station, Texas, an echo of the funeral trains used for presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Bush will be interred on the grounds of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M University, laid to rest next to Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years, who died in April, and Robin Bush, their daughter who died of leukemia in 1953 at age 3.